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How Can Your Dentist Help with Snoring?
Among the products that can help you curb snoring are the snoring mouthguards. These devices in many cases have been designed by dentists to control the architecture of your mouth while sleeping. Studies have shown a marked lessening of snoring while wearing properly fitting oral anti-snoring devices.
Why Oral Devices?
Sounds uncomfortable, right? But many chronic and loud snorers get relief from oral snoring devices. Widely known as mandibular advancement devices, oral anti-snoring guards are designed to counteract the natural tendency for your tongue to slide to the back of your mouth and your jaw to relax both of which contribute to airway obstruction. An obstructed airway can worsen snoring.
How Mandibular Advancement Devices Work
Anti-snoring oral mouthpieces are fitted by your dentist and are designed to do a couple of things:
- stabilize your jaw in the case of a receding jaw
- push or advance the jaw slightly forward, naturally opening the airway
- depress your tongue so it doesn’t fall to the back of your throat and block breathing
- ensure that soft palate tissue doesn’t impede the passageway, either.
Risks and Side Effects of Oral Anti-Snoring Devices
Because oral breathing appliances are designed to exert subtle force on your jaw and subsequently teeth, we recommend you are fitted by your dentist.
Some side effects of wearing a night-time mouthguard:
- Initial trouble fitting them possible
- Can be uncomfortable at first
- Produce extra saliva until users get accustomed to the device
- Subsequent dentist visits for adjustments to the device
Currently only oral anti-snoring mouth pieces prescribed through your dentist or doctor, fitted by your dentist, AND approved by the FDA are legal for sale as oral appliances for relief of snoring.
Causes for Snoring
If you snore you could occasionally be the butt of jokes and it could be made light of. And this is okay if your snoring is infrequent and mild. But if your snoring is serious—caused by sleep disorders or physiological features that obstruct your airway—then your nuisance snoring may not be so funny.
A wide assortment of environmental, physical and medical conditions can cause snoring. It’s important that you decode your particular source. If your snoring is regular it could be related to sleep apnea and that means you could need a physician’s intervention. Sleep apnea is more than loud snoring it is really an interruption in sleep cycle breathing—lack of oxygen to the brain being the serious component in the disorder. This is not to say that all instances of sleep apnea are serious—many are mild and relieved with behavioral and lifestyle changes.
Find out what causes your snoring, first.
Positional Snoring
A lot of people experience mild snoring when sleeping on their backs. Often their tongue or airway tissue can relax and collapse during breathing, resulting in snoring. A change in position either elevating the head or rolling over to your side is usually enough to fix the problem.
Obesity and Sleep
Obesity is associated with a higher incidence of snoring and sleep apnea. Obesity and relaxing sleep do not make good bed-fellows. If you carry excess weight it can seriously impede your breathing while you’re sleeping, leading to snoring AND sleep apnea. Most people with mild snoring and sleep apnea can relieve snoring with weight loss. It is probably the most effective home remedy you can try, and it’s the only one that will also help with sleep apnea. It’s also the hardest one to accomplish.
Physical Features that Increase Risk for Snoring
Because snoring is a collapse of restriction of the airway while sleeping a number of physical features can be causal, as well:
- Receding chin
- Enlarged tonsils
- Extra fatty airway tissue
- Large tongue
- Excess weight around the neck area
- Deviated septum
Reducing Muscle Relaxation
You can try reducing snoring by reducing causes of muscle relaxation, such as drugs or alcohol. Try reducing alcohol consumption in the afternoon or evening, or potentially eliminating it altogether.
Sleeping pills may seem like a great way to get more sleep, but they can increase muscle relaxation and may lead to increased snoring and even sleep apnea. People who are having sleeping problems should be evaluated for sleep apnea before they begin taking any type of sleep medication.
Situational Snoring
Some situations can lead to snoring:
- Cold, allergies, sinus infections – all of these can constrict nasal passages and make it difficult to breath, leading to minor and irregular bouts of snoring.
- A night of drinking – take in too much alcohol late at night and sleep on your back then snoring could be a feature of your sleep on that particular night. If you drink alcohol frequently before going to bed and have regular snoring you might try cutting back or eliminating alcohol entirely from your nightly routine.
Try taking antihistamines or nasal decongestants before bed.
For a longer-term effect, try reducing dust and allergens in your sleeping environment by cleaning more regularly or using an air filter. You can get targeted recommendations for which allergens to reduce if you get professionally evaluated for allergies.
Snoring Strips
For some people, snoring is all in the nose. If your primary cause of snoring is narrow nasal passages, snoring strips may be able to help. These semirigid strips stick to the top of your nose and pull up and out on your nose to keep your nasal passages open.
If your nose anatomy causes your snoring, these may work great, but for most people with chronic snoring, these have little or no impact.
Changing Your Sleep Position
People who sleep on their back tend to have worse snoring than people who sleep in other positions. If you are a back sleeper, you can try several options to try to change to a side sleeper. Bracing yourself with pillows may help, but one of the most effective solutions is to try sewing a tennis ball in the back of your pajamas to keep yourself from rolling onto your back
When Home Remedies Don’t Work
These home remedies may be effective for people with short-term snoring problems, or snoring problems related to specific causes. For people with serious, chronic snoring professional help is required.
To speak to sleep dentist Dr. Dan Yahnian about snoring treatment options, please schedule an appointment at one of our offices today or call 303-991-4455.
Sleep Apnea Snoring
Snoring is one of the possible signs of sleep apnea. Not everyone who snores has this disorder, but frequently those that have sleep apnea also snore. In sleep apnea, sleep breathing occasionally stops due to an anatomically obstructed airway. Risks increase with obesity and some of the physical or anatomical features that can lead to snoring listed above. If you notice snoring mixed with choking, gasping or pauses in breathing in a bed partner make sure he or she talks to a physician.
More Helpful Resources
- National Sleep Foundation https://sleepfoundation.org
- American Sleep Association https://www.sleepassociation.org
- Harvard Healthy Sleep http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu
- NHS